The use of discrete event simulation in hospital supply chain management

A major challenge facing hospitals is to provide efficient medical services. Healthcare supply chain management (HSCM) using Discrete Event Simulation (DES) has received in literature considerable attention for more than two decades. Despite the widespread literature on this topic, efforts to review and analyze previous studies are very limited. For this reason, this paper proposes a new conceptual classification scheme to classify current developments of the use of the DES in Healthcare Management research. More than 30 papers published studies within 2003-2013 were classified and analyzed. This proposed conceptual classification scheme is based on the healthcare facilities application, the type of decision making (strategic, tactical and operational), and the application category. It could be useful for researchers as a starting point to facilitate further improvement in the HSCM field because it provides a faster access and understanding of the relevant literature. This paper offers a comprehensive reference work, which groups the publications into the application fields and gives brief summary on the background, application and methodology applied for each reviewed article.